Direct Broadcast Satellite reconfigurable at two orbital positions

The present investigation has the objective to demonstrate the feasibility of an in-orbit reconfigurable Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) antenna, with multiple highly shaped beams of different shapes. It is pointed out that the overall cost of a Direct Broadcast Satellite system, over a large country, is dominated by the total cost of several million home terminals. The higher the satellite Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) across the country, the lower is the cost of the home receiver and its antenna. It is found that the coverage by a DBS of a large service area such as the whole of Canada requires at least two spacecraft. The feasibility of using shaped beams as well as antenna reconfigurability for DBS is considered. On the basis of cost alone, the reconfigurable antenna spare spacecraft is found to lead to a significant saving in the total cost of two dedicated spacecraft. A case for designing three identical reconfigurable antenna satellites, instead of two dedicated plus one spare is presented.